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After the Accident: You will see why it has won awards and has been commissioned by the BBC
After The Accident
Alma Tavern Theatre
Nov 10-21
By Sophia Lomax
Here it comes: an entire deck of cards on the table. Julian Armitstead’s play After the Accident is one of the best pieces of new writing I’ve seen all year and a bright-shining highlight of Theatre West’s season at the Alma Tavern.
The odds on for an entertaining evening aren’t, frankly, great. We’re shown, in forensic detail, how the death of a nine-year-old girl has left her parents “dead” inside and the tortured perpetrator of her accidental killing threatening suicide.
At the play’s turbulent heart is a clear-eyed look at the process of restorative justice, where victims are offered the chance to spell out to offenders the impact of their crime and – sometimes – to receive answers and an apology.
We’re shown Leon, played with quiet power and muffled despair by Joe Shire, in the bald glare of a prison mediation room. Chairs loll municipally around; some of their occupants are lost loved ones – the daughter and Leon’s friend, both killed in the accident, are given their own places in the discussion.
The iron strength of Armitstead’s writing lies in its compassionate objectivity. We’re not asked automatically to empathise with Leon. He’s a petty thief with a sizeable sideline in stealing cars. His broken home is glancingly touched on – Leon’s mother has, heartbreakingly, washed her hands of him – but there isn’t an ounce of mawkish heartstring-tugging.
Preconceptions are turned on their heads. Jimmy, the grieving father played with a knocked-for-six air by Emmanuel Ighodaro, begins by professing a longing to kill Leon, who fatally crashed his stolen car into Jimmy’s, but he ends up admitting: ‘I can’t hate you as much as I hate myself’ because – what do you know? – he’d allowed his daughter to sit illegally in the passenger seat beside him.
They all talk over each other, particularly a vociferous Nadia Williams, who as mother Petra takes a gut-wrenching turn at swearing and crying – often at once. They yell. They mourn. It’s all pell-mell with stress but, in the pauses, past happinesses are recalled with paens to spring, to bluebells and to cherry blossom.
Where After the Accident does waver a little in its potency is in some overwrought similes which occasionally threaten to topple its breathtakingly plain storytelling. But, perhaps, some allusions to distance the pain are needed, to spare an audience from floundering forever afterwards in a vale of tears.
After the Accident has already won one award, from Amnesty International, and has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. Go, watch it and you’ll see why.
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